“We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can
carry nothing out. And having food and raiment let us be therewith
content.”—1 Tim. vi. 7, 8.
Every age has its own special sins and temptations. Impatience with
their lot, murmuring, grudging, unthankfulness, discontent, are sins
common to men at all times, but I suppose one of those sins which
belongs to our age more than to another, is desire of a greater portion
of worldly goods than God has given us,—ambition and covetousness in
one shape or another. This is an age and country in which, more than in
any other, men have the opportunity of what is called rising in
life,—of changing from a lower to a higher class of society, of
gaining wealth; and upon wealth all things follow,—consideration,
credit, influence, power, enjoyment, the lust of the flesh, and the
lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. Since, then, men now-a-days
have so often the opportunity of gaining worldly goods which formerly
they had not, it is not wonderful they should be tempted to gain them;
nor wonderful that when they have gained them, they should set their
heart upon them.
And it will often happen, that from coveting them before they are
gained, and from making much of them when they are gained, men will be
led to take unlawful means, whether to increase them, or not to lose
them. But I am not going so far as to suppose the case of dishonesty,
fraud, double-dealing, injustice, or the like: to these St. Paul seems
to allude when he goes on to say, “They that will be rich fall into
temptation and a snare;” again, “The love of money is the root of all
evil.” But let us confine ourselves to the consideration of the nature
itself, and the natural effects, of these worldly things, without
extending our view to those further evils to which they may give
occasion. St. Paul says in the text, that we ought to be content with
food and raiment; and the wise man says, “Give me neither poverty nor
riches; feed me with food convenient for me[1].” And our Lord would
have us “take no thought for the morrow,” which surely is a dissuasion
from aggrandizing ourselves, accumulating wealth, or aiming at
distinction. And He has taught us when we pray to say, “Give us this
day our daily bread.” Yet a great number of persons, I may say,
nearly all men, are not content with enough, they are not satisfied
with sufficiency; they wish for something more than simplicity, and
plainness, and gravity, and modesty, in their mode of living; they like
show and splendour, and admiration from the many, and obsequiousness on
the part of those who have to do with them, and the ability to do as
they will; they like to attract the eye, to be received with
consideration and respect, to be heard with deference, to be obeyed
with promptitude; they love greetings in the markets, and the highest
seats; they like to be well dressed, and to have titles of honour. Now,
then, I will attempt to show that these gifts of the world which men
seek are not to be reckoned good things; that they are ill suited to
our nature and our present state, and are dangerous to us; that it is
on the whole best for our prospects of happiness even here, not to say
hereafter, that we should be without them.
Now, first, that these worldly advantages, as they are called, are
not productive of any great enjoyment even now to the persons
possessing them, it does not require many words to prove. I might
indeed maintain, with no slight show of reason, that these things, so
far from increasing happiness, are generally the source of much
disquietude; that as a person has more wealth, or more power, or more
distinction, his cares generally increase, and his time is less his
own: thus, in the words of the preacher, “the abundance of the rich
will not suffer him to sleep,” and, “in much wisdom is much grief, and
he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow[2].” But however this
may be, at least these outward advantages do not increase our
happiness. Let me ask any one who has succeeded in any object of his
desire, has he experienced in his success that full, that lasting
satisfaction which he anticipated? Did not some feeling of
disappointment, of weariness, of satiety, of disquietude, after a short
time, steal over his mind? I think it did; and if so; what reason has
he to suppose that that greater share of reputation, opulence, and
influence which he has not, and which he desires, would, if granted
him, suffice to make him happy? No; the fact is certain, however slow
and unwilling we may be to believe it, none of these things bring the
pleasure which we beforehand suppose they will bring. Watch narrowly
the persons who possess them, and you will at length discover the same
uneasiness and occasional restlessness which others have; you will find
that there is just a something beyond, which they are striving after,
or just some one thing which annoys and distresses them. The good
things you admire please for the most part only while they are new; now
those who have them are accustomed to them, so they care little for
them, and find no alleviation in them of the anxieties and cares which
still remain. It is fine, in prospect and imagination, to be looked up
to, admired, applauded, courted, feared, to have a name among men, to
rule their opinions or their actions by our word, to create a stir by
our movements, while men cry, “Bow the knee,” before us; but none knows
so well how vain is the world's praise, as he who has it. And why is
this? It is, in a word, because the soul was made for religious
employments and pleasures; and hence, that no temporal blessings,
however exalted or refined, can satisfy it. As well might we attempt to
sustain the body on chaff, as to feed and nourish the immortal soul
with the pleasures and occupations of the world.
Only thus much, then, shall I say on the point of worldly advantages
not bringing present happiness. But next, let us consider that, on the
other hand, they are positively dangerous to our eternal interests.
Many of these things, if they did no other harm, at least are
injurious to our souls, by taking up the time which might else be given
to religion. Much intercourse with the world, which eminence and
station render a duty, has a tendency to draw off the mind from God,
and deaden it to the force of religious motives and considerations.
There is a want of sympathy between much business and calm devotion,
great splendour and a simple faith, which will be to no one more
painful than to the Christian, to whom God has assigned some post of
especial responsibility or distinction. To maintain a religious spirit
in the midst of engagements and excitements of this world is possible
only to a saint; nay, the case is the same though our business be one
of a charitable and religious nature, and though our chief intercourse
is with those whom we believe to have their minds set upon religion,
and whose principles and conduct are not likely to withdraw our feet
from the narrow way of life. For here we are likely to be deceived from
the very circumstance that our employments are religious; and our end,
as being a right one, will engross us, and continually tempt us to be
inattentive to the means, and to the spirit in which we pursue it. Our
Lord alludes to the danger of multiplied occupations in the Parable of
the Sower: “He that received seed among thorns, is he that heareth the
word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke
the word, and he becometh unfruitful.”
Again, these worldly advantages, as they are called, will seduce us
into an excessive love of them. We are too well inclined by nature to
live by sight, rather than by faith; and besides the immediate
enjoyment, there is something so agreeable to our natural tastes in the
honours and emoluments of the world, that it requires an especially
strong mind, and a large measure of grace, not to be gradually
corrupted by them. We are led to set our hearts upon them, and in the
same degree to withdraw them from God. We become unwilling to leave
this visible state of things, and to be reduced to a level with those
multitudes who are at present inferior to ourselves. Prosperity is
sufficient to seduce, although not to satisfy. Hence death and judgment
are unwelcome subjects of reflection to the rich and powerful; for
death takes from them those comforts which habit has made necessary to
them, and throws them adrift on a new order of things, of which they
know nothing, save that in it there is no respect of persons.
And as these goods lead us to love the world, so again do they lead
us to trust in the world: we not only become worldly-minded, but
unbelieving; our wills becoming corrupt, our understandings also become
dark, and disliking the truth, we gradually learn to maintain and
defend error. St. Paul speaks of those who “having put away a good
conscience, concerning faith made shipwreck[3].” Familiarity with this
world makes men discontented with the doctrine of the narrow way; they
fall into heresies, and attempt to attain salvation on easier terms
than those which Christ holds out to us. In a variety of ways this love
of the world operates. Men's opinions are imperceptibly formed by their
wishes. If, for instance, we see our worldly prospects depend, humanly
speaking, upon a certain person, we are led to court him, to honour
him, and adopt his views, and trust in an arm of flesh, till we forget
the overruling power of God's providence, and the necessity of His
blessing, for the building of the house and the keeping of the city.
And moreover, these temporal advantages, as they are considered,
have a strong tendency to render us self-confident. When a man has been
advanced in the world by means of his own industry and skill, when he
began poor and ends rich, how apt will he be to pride himself, and
confide, in his own contrivances and his own resources! Or when a man
feels himself possessed of good abilities; of quickness in entering
into a subject, or of powers of argument to discourse readily upon it,
or of acuteness to detect fallacies in dispute with little effort, or
of a delicate and cultivated taste, so as to separate with precision
the correct and beautiful in thought and feeling from the faulty and
irregular, how will such an one be tempted to self-complacency and
self-approbation! how apt will he be to rely upon himself, to rest
contented with himself, to be harsh and impetuous; or supercilious; or
to be fastidious, indolent, unpractical; and to despise the pure,
self-denying, humble temper of religion, as something irrational, dull,
enthusiastic, or needlessly rigorous!
These considerations on the extreme danger of possessing temporal
advantages, will be greatly strengthened by considering the conduct of
holy men when gifted with them. Take, for instance, Hezekiah, one of
the best of the Jewish kings. He, too, had been schooled by occurrences
which one might have thought would have beaten down all pride and
self-esteem. The king of Assyria had come against him, and seemed
prepared to overwhelm him with his hosts; and he had found his God a
mighty Deliverer, cutting off in one night of the enemy an hundred
fourscore and five thousand men. And again, he had been miraculously
recovered from sickness, when the sun's shadow turned ten degrees back,
to convince him of the certainty of the promised recovery. Yet when the
king of Babylon sent ambassadors to congratulate him on this recovery,
we find this holy man ostentatiously displaying to them his silver, and
gold, and armour. Truly the heart is “deceitful above all things;” and
it was, indeed, to manifest this more fully that God permitted him thus
to act. God “left him,” says the inspired writer, “to try him, that he
might know all that was in his heart[4].” Let us take David as another
instance of the great danger of prosperity; he, too, will exemplify the
unsatisfactory nature of temporal goods; for which, think you, was the
happier, the lowly shepherd or the king of Israel? Observe his simple
reliance on God and his composure, when advancing against Goliath: “The
Lord,” he says, “that delivered me out of the paw of the lion and out
of the paw of the bear, He will deliver me out of the hand of this
Philistine[5].” And compare this with his grievous sins, his continual
errors, his weaknesses, inconsistencies, and then his troubles and
mortifications after coming to the throne of Israel; and who will not
say that his advancement was the occasion of both sorrow and sin,
which, humanly speaking, he would have escaped, had he died amid the
sheepfolds of Jesse? He was indeed most wonderfully sustained by Divine
grace, and died in the fear of God; yet what rightminded and consistent
Christian but must shrink from the bare notion of possessing a worldly
greatness so corrupting and seducing as David's kingly power was shown
to be in the instance of so great a Saint? The case of Solomon is still
more striking; his falling away even surpasses our anticipation of what
our Saviour calls “the deceitfulness of riches.” He may indeed, for
what we know, have repented; but at least the history tells us nothing
of it. All we are told is, that “King Solomon loved many strange women
. . . and it came to pass when Solomon was old, that his wives turned
away his heart after other gods; and his heart was not perfect with the
Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father. For Solomon went
after Ashtaroth, the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom, the
abomination of the Ammonites[6].” Yet this was he who had offered up
that most sublime and affecting prayer at the Dedication of the Temple,
and who, on a former occasion, when the Almighty gave him the choice of
any blessing he should ask, had preferred an understanding heart to
long life, and honour, and riches.
So dangerous, indeed, is the possession of the goods of this world,
that, to judge from the Scripture history, seldom has God given unmixed
prosperity to any one whom He loves. “Blessed is the man,” says the
Psalmist, “whom Thou chastenest, and teachest him out of Thy law[7].”
Even the best men require some pain or grief to sober them and keep
their hearts right. Thus, to take the example of St. Paul himself, even
his labours, sufferings, and anxieties, he tells us, would not have
been sufficient to keep him from being exalted above measure, through
the abundance of the revelations, unless there had been added some
further cross, some “thorn in the flesh[8],” as he terms it, some
secret affliction, of which we are not particularly informed, to humble
him, and to keep him in a sense of his weak and dependent condition.
The history of the Church after him affords us an additional lesson
of the same serious truth. For three centuries it was exposed to
heathen persecution; during that long period God's Hand was upon His
people: what did they do when that Hand was taken off? How did they act
when the world was thrown open to them, and the saints possessed the
high places of the earth? did they enjoy it? far from it, they shrank
from that which they might, had they chosen, have made much of; they
denied themselves what was set before them; when God's Hand was
removed, their own hand was heavy upon them. Wealth, honour, and power,
they put away from them. They recollected our Lord's words, “How hardly
shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God[9]!” And St.
James's, “Hath not God chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith,
and heirs of the kingdom[10]?” For three centuries they had no need to
think of those words, for Christ remembered them, and kept them humble;
but when He left them to themselves, then they did voluntarily what
they had hitherto suffered patiently. They were resolved that the
Gospel character of a Christian should be theirs. Still, as before,
Christ spoke of His followers as poor and weak, and lowly and
simple-minded; men of plain lives, men of prayer, not “faring
sumptuously,” or clad in “soft raiment,” or “taking thought for the
morrow.” They recollected what He said to the young Ruler, “If thou
wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and
thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come and follow Me.” And so
they put off their “gay clothing,” their “gold, and pearls, and costly
array;” they “sold that they had, and gave alms;” they “washed one
another's feet;” they “had all things common.” They formed themselves
into communities for prayer and praise, for labour and study, for the
care of the poor, for mutual edification, and preparation for Christ;
and thus, as soon as the world professed to be Christian, Christians at
once set up among them a witness against the world, and kings and monks
came into the Church together. And from that time to this, never has
the union of the Church with the State prospered, but when the Church
was in union also with the hermitage and the cell.
Moreover, in those religious ages, Christians avoided greatness in
the Church as well as in the world. They would not accept rank and
station on account of their spiritual peril, when they were no longer
encompassed by temporal trials. When they were elected to the
episcopate, when they were appointed to the priesthood, they fled away
and hid themselves. They recollected our Lord's words, “Whosoever will
be chief among you, let him be your servant;” and again, “Be not ye
called Rabbi, for one is your Master, even Christ, and all ye are
brethren[11].” And when discovered and forced to the eminence which
they shunned, they made much lament, and were in many tears. And they
felt that their higher consideration in the world demanded of them some
greater strictness and self-denial in their course of life, lest it
should turn to a curse, lest the penance of which it would defraud them
here, should be visited on them in manifold measure hereafter. They
feared to have “their good things” and “their consolation” on earth,
lest they should not have Lazarus' portion in heaven. That state of
things indeed is now long passed away, but let us not miss the
doctrinal lesson which it conveys, if we will not take it for our
pattern.
Before I conclude, however, I must take notice of an objection which
may be made to what I have been saying. It may be asked, “Are not these
dangerous things the gifts of God? Are they not even called blessings?
Did not God bestow riches and honour upon Solomon as a reward? And did
He not praise him for praying for wisdom? And does not St. Paul say,
'Covet earnestly the best gifts[12]?'“ It is true; nor did I ever mean
to say that these things were bad in themselves, but bad, for us, if we
seek them as ends, and dangerous to us from their fascination. “Every
creature of God is good,” as St. Paul says, “and nothing to be
refused[13];” but circumstances may make good gifts injurious in our
particular case. Wine is good in itself, but not for a man in a fever.
If our souls were in perfect health, riches and authority, and strong
powers of mind, would be very suitable to us: but they are weak and
diseased, and require so great a grace of God to bear these advantages
well, that we may be well content to be without them.
Still it may be urged, Are we then absolutely to give them up if we
have them, and not accept them when offered? It may be a duty to keep
them, it is sometimes a duty to accept them; for in certain cases God
calls upon us not so much to put them away, as to put away our old
natures, and make us new hearts and new spirits, wherewith to receive
them. At the same time, it is merely for our safety to know their
perilous nature, and to beware of them, and in no case to take them
simply for their own sake, but with a view to God's glory. They must be
instruments in our hands to promote the cause of Gospel truth. And, in
this light, they have their value, and impart their real pleasure; but
be it remembered, that value and that happiness are imparted by the end
to which they are dedicated; It is “the altar that sanctifieth the
gift[14]:” but, compared with the end to which they must be directed,
their real and intrinsic excellence is little indeed.
In this point of view it is that we are to covet earnestly the best
gifts: for it is a great privilege to be allowed to serve the Church.
Have we wealth? let it be the means of extending the knowledge of the
truth—abilities? of recommending it—power? of defending it.
From what I have said concerning the danger of possessing the things
which the world admires, we may draw the following rule: use them, as
far as given, with gratitude for what is really good in them, and with
a desire to promote God's glory by means of them, but do not go out of
the way to seek them. They will not on the whole make you happier, and
they may make you less religious.
For us, indeed, who are all the adopted children of God our Saviour,
what addition is wanting to complete our happiness? What can increase
their peace who believe and trust in the Son of God? Shall we add a
drop to the ocean, or grains to the sand of the sea? Shall we ask for
an earthly inheritance, who have the fulness of an heavenly one; power,
when in prayer we can use the power of Christ, or wisdom, guided as we
may be by the true Wisdom and Light of men? It is in this sense that
the Gospel of Christ is a leveller of ranks: we pay, indeed, our
superiors full reverence, and with cheerfulness as unto the Lord; and
we honour eminent talents as deserving admiration and reward, and the
more readily act we thus, because these are little things to pay. The
time is short, year follows year, and the world is passing away. It is
of small consequence to those who are beloved of God, and walk in the
Spirit of truth, whether they pay or receive honour, which is but
transitory and profitless. To the true Christian the world assumes
another and more interesting appearance; it is no longer a stage for
the great and noble, for the ambitious to fret in, and the wealthy to
revel in; but it is a scene of probation. Every soul is a candidate for
immortality. And the more we realize this view of things, the more will
the accidental distinctions of nature or fortune die away from our
view, and we shall be led habitually to pray, that upon every Christian
may descend, in rich abundance, not merely worldly goods, but that
heavenly grace which alone can turn this world to good account for us,
and make it the path of peace and of life everlasting.
[1] Prov. xxx. 8.
[2] Eccles. i. 18.
[3] 1 Tim. i. 19.
[4] 2 Chron. xxxii. 31.
[5] 1 Sam. xvii. 37.
[6] 1 Kings xi. 1, 4, 5.
[7] Ps. xciv. 12.
[8] 2 Cor. xii. 7.
[9] Mark x. 23.
[10] James ii. 5.
[11] Matt. xx. 27, xxiii. 8.
[12] 1 Cor. xii. 31.
[13] 1 Tim. iv. 4.
[14] 1 Matt. xxiii. 19.